The Opie & Anthony show, known for it’s extreme, crass, and cringing humor, is being skewered by the media for a segment in which they invited a homeless person, known as Homeless Charlie, into the studio to get his thoughts on life and events in the world. The conversation eventually turned into talk about his sexual fantasies, where he proceeded to describe in detail how he’d like to have sex with Condoleezza Rice, Laura Bush, and the Queen of England. Sure, on the surface it doesn’t seem like much to think twice about. What created the firestorm though, was the manner in which he’d like to have his sex. See, because Homeless Charlie isn’t a big fan of her politics, he said he’d like to give her a couple of good punches to the mouth during their little imaginary tryst. With that blurb, the news media went into a frenzy. Chastising O & A for ‘their comments’ on the show. Did you see the problem with that last sentence?

“Their comments” as in, the radio hosts’ comments.

That’s how it was first portrayed in, what I like to consider, another lovely turn by the media at failing to check their facts and run with speculation and here-say. Roughly a day or two after the comments aired (on their uncensored, subscription only show on XM radio), stories hit the press that Opie & Anthony had called for the rape of the Secretary of State, the First Lady, and the Queen. None of the initial reporters had bothered to do much in the way of….oh I don’t know….making sure that they got the damn story right in the first place. Why doesn’t this surprise me? Because of this misreporting of the actual events, controversy ensued as yet another ‘shock radio’ show was called out for offensive comments. I mentioned it earlier, but I’ll say it again, the comments were broadcast over an ‘adult content’ channel on a subscription service. It can be blocked by those subscribers that wish to not hear offensive content. Furthermore, O & A specialize in a type of humor known as ‘cringe humor’. That is, they often make light of otherwise serious topics from death to disease to you name it. If a joke can be made about it, they’ll find a way to do it.

Sure their humor isn’t for everyone, much like the way that I personally find Larry the Cable Guy to be a hack comedian whose claim to fame was ‘Git ‘er done’. That being said though, Larry makes about $200,000 per show and sells out everywhere he goes, so somebody’s got to like him. Would I pay to see him? Not a chance, unless he was on the card with the likes of Jim Norton, Patrice Oneal, Bill Burr, Bob Saget (yes that Bob Saget), etc.

See the one thing that everyone seems to lose sight of in this era of political correctness is the fact that humor is completely subjective by nature. While many people might see what Homeless Charlie said as horrid and angering on the surface, there are others who might think of the image of a homeless guy and Condi ‘getting it on’ and just laugh their ass off at the absurd vision of this.

Needless to say, Opie and Anthony apologized in a statement prepared by XM radio. You can’t say it was a heartfelt apology because in the hosts’ eyes they had done nothing wrong. Apparently XM noticed that they didn’t seem to torn up about it, because 3 days later XM suspended the duo for showing a lack of concern about their actions. Thirty days, no XM show, while they are continuing to broadcast their terrestrial portion of the radio show on CBS. CBS, thankfully, did the right thing and decided not to pull the duo due to the uproar, because they had no connections to the comments, and the comments weren’t broadcast on the simulcast portion.

What happened next, you ask?

XM subscribers canceled their subscriptions by the thousands, some waiting as long as an hour and a half on hold to do so. Some of the show’s advertisers have pulled their dollars out of the XM coffers, because they find the suspension to be completely undeserved. Fears that the duo would be fired for a third time in their tumultuous careers were echoed all over fan sites and message boards devoted to the show. Now word comes out that many of the subscriptions were never canceled and merely given a one month free credit. Shame on you XM. Deceiving customers not once, but twice. First by claiming to be uncensored then censoring your talent, then by telling your customers (or ex-customers) they would have their subscriptions canceled and not following through on that.

In the end, it seems that XM is standing by their position that the show will be returning after finishing out the suspension (something that fans are still speculating on). We’ll only know for sure on June 15th. I’m hoping it returns, and that the show comes back with a vengeance. Taking no prisoners and continues to make its fans laugh uncomfortably. As well as, telling the crybabies of the world who only know what they read via factually inaccurate reporting that is today’s media to go fuck themselves. That’s what makes the show what it is, and that’s why the people listen.

Remember, there is no law against offending somebody.